Please don’t stop the music

Pandora, a personalized internet radio site fit for both computer and mobile devices, has recently announced some new restrictions on their supposedly “free” music service.

Pandora telling me I used up all of my hours. Photo by Amanda Pellegrin.

I use Pandora more than the average person. I love hearing new music, my favorite songs, and songs that I forgot existed all in one sitting without having to download any music to my phone.

Yes, there were some restrictions when I first signed up. You can only skip so many songs and there are lengthy ads every now and then. Then they decided you could only have 100 radio stations. Which are all fine with me…but now they’ve taken it outside my comfort zone.

Money was never an issue until now. Pandora is now limiting users to 40 hours of music before requesting payment. They’ve actually cut me off from my music.

Tim Westergren posted on the companies blog explaining that the new rule was “…an effort to balance the reality of increasing royalty costs with our desire to maximize access to free listening on Pandora…”

If you exceed 40 hours and want to listen for the rest of the month, its 99 cents. If you’d like to purchase a month of unlimited ad-free listening, it’s $3.99. C’mon.

I honestly understand why they need money and restrictions, but four bucks a month? Why not just delete the entire app, make customers purchase the app and re-download it, then use that money instead of charging monthly.

I’ve already used all of my hours. Unfortunately, I’ll probably end up giving in and paying them every month, if that means no ads and all of my music back. Oh, Pandora…